Just how bad is driving while distracted?
New study cites distracted driving accounts for 80 percent of crashes
Jesse Holland | contributing writer
rholland@smcvt.edu
Four students at Pennridge High School in Perkasie, Pennsylvania have died in car collisions within a six month period. The latest casualty was Silas Peters, a 17-year-old junior, who was hit head-on by a sport utility vehicle on March 22.
On April 20, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) released a report stating that driver distraction accounted for 80 percent of car collisions and 65 percent of near-collisions.
Statistics don't lie
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Jason Moore is the assistant director of the MOVE program at St. Michael's College and helps with teaching students van certification.
(Jelean Durrant, photo.)
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The study followed the daily driving habits of 241 people for a year. According to the NHTSA, 100 cars were equipped with sensors and were driven 2,000,000 miles during the year. This provided researchers with nearly 42,300 hours of data.
The 241 drivers of the vehicles were involved in 82 collisions, 761 near-collisions, and 8,295 critical incidents.
“The huge database developed through this breakthrough study is enormously valuable in helping us to understand and prevent motor vehicle crashes,” Dr. Tom Dingus, director of VTTI, says in a NHTSA press release.
According to the study, driving while drowsy significantly increases the chance of being involved in a collision. Fatigue played a role in 12 percent of total collisions.
The most common distraction facing drivers is cell phone use. The study concluded that the number of accidents involving dialing and just talking on the cell phone were the same.
According to the study, reaching for a moving object increased the risk of a collision or near-collision by nine times.
The study also showed that drivers that were 18 to 20 years old had an accident rate four times higher than that of older drivers.
According to the VTTI Web site, researchers are hoping that this study provides a huge amount of information which will help develop better transportation policies and safer vehicles.
Preparing student drivers at St. Michael's College
Jason Moore, the assistant director of the Mobilzation of Volunteer Efforts (M.O.V.E. program,) is a certified van training instructor on campus. Students at St. Michael’s must complete a training course in order to drive the school vans.
Moore offered to help with the training because MOVE has so many students that need to drive the vans for the various community service programs.
Moore says that students are required to go through van certification each year. Driving distracted and fatigued are issues, according to Moore, that he focuses on during the van certification training.
“One of the things we talk about is if you’re going on a long trip to make sure you take frequent stops,” Moore says. “Every two to three hours.”
Student drivers are also asked to have someone sitting in the front seat, and to take control of the van when they are driving.
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When drivers multi-task, they are more likely to miss traffic directions.
(Jelean Durrant, photo.)
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“We emphasize the driver is in control if the music is too loud, if the passengers are too loud they are in control,” Moore says. “We always say its up to you [student drivers] to be in charge in terms of the safety of everyone else, so you need to gauge with what you’re comfortable with.”
This semester some of the vans used by students and faculty had “RS-1000s,” a monitoring device, installed in them. All the information is logged and can be downloaded by school officials.
Students offer perspective
Kate Schnurr, a St. Michael’s junior, is van certified and says that during van certification the instructors drill safe driving skills into you.
“I focus more on the road, and make sure everyone has their seatbelts on,” Schnurr says. “If the music is on, I make sure it’s quiet, and I make sure the person in the front seat is responsible and knows that I need to focus.”
Deirdre Kreckel, a St. Michael’s sophomore, says that when she is driving she uses an ear piece, which came with her cell phone, to talk.
“My mom insists on knowing where I am when I am driving,” Kreckel says.
When Kreckel can’t find her ear piece, she says she keeps her cell phone use to a minimum and definitely feels more distracted while on the phone.
While St. Michael's students appear to be taking the necessary steps toward safe driving, this study shows that the dangers are still very high for drivers.
